MADISON, Wis. -- A group of academics who support a theory that the destruction of the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001, wasn't the work of terrorists said that the recent controversy about University of Wisconsin lecturer Kevin Barrett has increased their membership.

Barrett said that he believes the U.S. government might have destroyed the World Trade Center. Brigham Young University instructor Steven Jones is researching what he calls evidence that the Twin Towers were brought down by explosives detonated inside them, not by hijacked airliners.

These men are academics at some of the nation's most prestigious universities. Barrett will teach a class on Islam at the University of Wisconsin this fall, over the protests of more than 60 state legislators. Jones is a tenured physicist at Brigham Young University whose mainstream academic job has made him a hero to conspiracy theorists.

Five years after the terrorist attacks, a community that believes widely discredited ideas about what happened in 2001 persists and even thrives. Members trade their ideas on the Internet and in self-published papers and in books.

About 500 of them attended a recent conference in Chicago.

The movement claims to be drawing fresh energy and credibility from a recently formed group called Scholars for 9/11 Truth.

The organization said that publicity over Barrett's case has helped boost membership to about 75 academics.

Barrett has been at the center of controversy after he expressed his theories during a radio interview and said that he planned to teach students his views. Sixty-one state legislators have denounced the hiring, but the UW-Madison provost said that Barrett is qualified to teach the course.

Meanwhile, the Ozaukee County Board is using the UW Extension to object to Barrett's teaching at the university. The board said that it would cut funding to the extension by the exact amount being paid to Barrett -- about $8,427.